Two recent murders. Two serial killers. A conspiracy that reaches beyond the physical world.

Consumed with grief over the tragic death of her husband, FBI agent Victory McClane is obsessed with finding Ohio’s serial killer, “The Wrapper”.

When another young woman turns up dead and the victim is linked to Derrick Lynn, son of the Secretary of Defense, Victory finds Derrick has all the right answers and is a little too helpful.

Derrick has a secret: He’s a government assassin who uses his unusual paranormal skills to eliminate targets. Determined to keep his own secrets buried, he offers to help find The Wrapper.

But can Victory trust him?

As the body count rises, Victory must cross a dangerous line–into a world of government cover-ups, murder, and betrayal–a decision that will test her limits. And everything she believes in.

The battle between good and evil begins! Deadly Shadow is the first book in the gripping paranormal/supernatural thriller series, an action-packed blend of suspense and mystery for detective and crime book lovers.

After two prominent scientists working at privately owned BSL-4 labs in Nevada and Texas are found murdered, no one makes the connection until investigative reporter, Whitney Steel, receives a lead pointing to an unspecified group plotting to unleash a biological attack using a new chimera virus known as “Resurrect”.
But when Whitney begins to unravel the truth as to who is behind the threat, enemies far and near surface, and a shocking discovery into the past changes her life forever in a race against the clock to stop the strike before thousands of innocent lives are lost.

Dr. Matthew Fielding estimated he had six days to live.
He doubted he’d make it that long. Not judging by the harsh glint in the dark eyes staring at him through the clear visor. Inside the barren warehouse, the man wore a blue positive-pressure suit with its own air supply and clutched a gun awkwardly in his rubber-gloved hand. The spaceman-like suit would protect the man. For Fielding, on the other hand, it was already too late. Sweat trickled down the sides of his face, and his body trembled.
It had begun.
The high fever and chills were only the beginning. Soon, he’d experience the worst headache of his life, muscle and abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting. Already, his internal organs burned as if set on fire, the pain insufferable. An hour ago, he’d noted a purplish-red maculopapular rash on his chest and shoulders, followed by a five-minute nosebleed.
“Do you have it?”
Fielding coughed, then nodded. “They’re going to know the sample is missing.”
“I’m planning on it.” The man pointed the gun at a gray chest on a metal table against the brick wall. “Put the vial in there.”
Fielding lifted his shaking hand and pulled out a glass tube from his shirt pocket. He walked across the room, his legs weak and wobbly, and pressed the red button on the portable refrigeration unit.
The lid hissed open, and he placed the tube inside. He eyed a second sample already in the unit. Worry worked through his body. “What do you plan on doing with these? It’s not as if I’ll be around to find out. We both know that.”
The man waved the gun. “Close the lid.”
He did as ordered and heard the suction of the vacuum seal, confirming the component was secure. Whatever the man was planning, it wasn’t good. He’d learned that two days ago, after he’d come home from work to find the man in his home, threatening to kill his wife and daughter if he didn’t do exactly as instructed. He’d had no choice. He would sacrifice himself if it meant keeping his family safe.
“Thanks to you, a new chimera virus. Just think about how much you have helped us today.”
It was much worse than he thought. The man had what he needed: two different micro-organisms containing the necessary genes to replicate and create a new pandemic. Nausea boiled in his gut, and the room spun. He seized the edge of the table to steady himself and closed his eyes until the dizziness subsided.
He had worked in Nevada at Flatiron Sargasso Laboratories for the past fifteen years, one of only two privately-run CDC/USDA registered BSL-4 labs in the United States, researching some of the most dangerous pathogens in the world: smallpox, Marburg, Ebola, dengue and yellow fevers.
Fielding knew what the man was up to. He just didn’t know the target’s identity. Nor did he know which terrorist group the man belonged to, whether foreign or domestic. Not that it mattered, because he wasn’t walking out of the warehouse alive. He erupted into a coughing fit, his throat dry and raw. He yanked a crumpled handkerchief out of his pants pocket and wiped his mouth. Blood soaked the white cloth, indicating hemorrhaging had started. He noticed the two new large bruises on the outside of his hands and wrists caused by the bleeding under his skin. Fear paralyzed his limbs. If the man didn’t kill him first, shock, delirium and kidney failure would put him in a coma, followed by an agonizing death. Either way, he was a goner.
The man simply stood and observed, probably knowing he was in pain and his health was declining rapidly.
Coppery sour blood filled his mouth. He swallowed slowly, careful not to choke. “What’s…the other organism you’re using for the virus?”
“Smallpox. We’re calling the virus, Resurrect. Seems fitting, don’t you think? It’s been a while since the world has experienced a large smallpox outbreak.”
All the breath whooshed out of his lungs. Dear God. Bad enough Fielding had accidentally infected himself with Marburg while hastily trying to smuggle the sample out of the lab. He had to admit the security measures in place were lax at best, even after 9/11. The thought of this villain infecting unsuspecting innocent people made him glad he was going to die long before the guilt of what he’d been forced to do killed him.
As he watched two other men in suits enter the warehouse, regret plagued his conscience, and tears filled his eyes. Why hadn’t he spent more time with his wife, Janet, and his eighteen-year-old daughter, Scarlet? All those long hours, working at the lab and writing the dozens of scientific papers filled with research that had consumed years of his life. A waste of time. Time he wasn’t going to be able to make up for. He knew that now.
The two men glanced at him then lifted the unit containing the viruses and headed to the open warehouse door where a box van waited, engine idling. Gas-laden exhaust filled the warehouse. They trudged up the ramp and placed the unit on the floor in the back.
His blurry gaze shifted to the man with the gun, and he saw it. A spark of awareness the end was inevitable. He closed his eyes. Please forgive me…
A gunshot cracked. The thunderous boom echoed and vibrated throughout the warehouse a split second before the bullet shattered his forehead and bored into his brain.

After a catastrophic terrorist attack at a nuclear plant in California, JET, Mossad’s former deadliest operative, is leading a quiet life off the grid two-hundred-and-seventy miles away with her young daughter. But peace is short-lived when former FBI agent, Hal Decker, and ex-intelligence officer, Angela Donahue, track Jet down and blackmail her into helping them stop a new threat.

In a race against the clock the team must hunt down an al Qaeda terrorist cell working with the Sur del Calle cartel before a dirty bomb is smuggled out of Colombia and into the United States unleashing a deadlier attack at a second nuclear facility.

*********

CHAPTER ONE

California – November 17

Umar Sarouk glanced up at the over-sized wall clock in the sterile fifty-by-fifty-foot control room and exhaled a long steady breath. It was six-thirty in the morning, and his twelve hour shift at Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant would end in thirty minutes.

After twenty years of marriage, he would not be returning home to his wife and two daughters. There would be no graduations, no weddings to attend, and he wouldn’t be celebrating his forty-seventh birthday next week. Nor would he meet his first grandchild due in three months, born to his eldest daughter, Jewel.

Any apprehension for what he was about to do had disappeared months ago, replaced with deep sorrow for the many things in life he would miss. His children. His wife. His friends.

He leaned back in the chair and looked around the horseshoe-shaped room cluttered with vertical panels, bench boards and control switches used to monitor the nuclear reactor’s coolant pumps, steam generator and pressurizer levels. A lifetime of memories flashed, fast-forwarding through his mind, and he held on to each of them like a life preserver.

He knew the time would come when he would be called upon to carry out a mission and he gladly accepted his fate.
After he was gone, the experts would argue that he had been “radicalized” to an unbending ideology; that specific signs were ignored before he’d reached the final plateau. They call it the “jumping-off point to terror”. But they wouldn’t uncover any of the typical signs.

He had done everything he had been ordered to do to stay off the FBI’s radar, including keeping his thoughts to himself, not once indulging his ideation, beliefs or fears to anyone, not even to his wife. He never lived a life of isolation and never posted messages on social media. More importantly, no one was aware of his link to al Qaeda. At least, not yet.

For the first time in his life, Umar felt whole—that he was part of something greater.

He wrung his hands together and noticed how his stubby fingers trembled slightly. It was almost time. He stood and faced the clock. His legs shook. He clutched the edge of the desk and held his head high.

Six-forty-nine. The calm before the storm.

For over eight months, he had smuggled all the necessary parts he needed into the facility, hiding pieces in his locker, behind the washroom hand dryer, in his lunch, and even in plastic bags submerged in the toilet tanks. As a nuclear engineer, he had access to restricted areas that were usually off limits to many of the employees. Every free moment he had, he secretly assembled the explosive devices and placed each one where he knew they would have the most impact.

Six-fifty-five.

Sweat slid down his forehead and dripped onto the bridge of his nose. He swiped the wetness away with the back of his hand and thought about his wife, Afina, grateful for the many wonderful years they’d had together. She was a good woman. A good mother. She’d never forgive him.

Seven o’clock.

Umar’s heart pounded.

The lights flicked off.

The electrical malfunction had originated at the power station a half mile north. He knew this because it was part of the plan to guarantee his mission was a success.

Two minutes later, the plant’s backup diesel generator fired up. The control room lights flickered twice then stayed on. Panic took over, and his breath came out in small bursts of air.

Remember why you’re doing this.

A loud boom directly below him sounded like lightning hitting a tree. He swore the tile floor shifted. The vibration from the explosion ripped up through his feet and tunneled through his body. He grabbed the edge of the desk to steady his balance.

The first bomb was meant to disrupt the backup power supply and the cooling system to the nuclear reactors.

The room went pitch black.

He felt bad for the men and women still in the plant and for the workers who had just arrived for the day shift—people he’d worked with for over a decade. They wouldn’t be returning to their families either. By now the plant’s internal emergency phone lines would be severed, leaving his friends to rely on their cell phones, if they worked at all, to communicate with their loved ones for the last time. Most would suffer thermal and radiation burns and then quickly perish from the lethal dose of radiation.

Tears filled Umar’s eyes at the thought of what would be coming next.

For a split second, survival instinct kicked in, and he wanted to run. But running wouldn’t save him. Nothing would. At least he’d be at peace, knowing his family was safe, vacationing on a Caribbean island far away from California—away from the fallout.

The floor below his feet shimmied then shook violently. The steel control room door blew outward, taking out half of the outer wall. Chunks of cement, wood, metal, wiring and sections of control panels rained down around him.
The shock wave from the second blast catapulted him backwards and slammed him into the bottom of a cabinet next to the row of alarm panels. He felt the bone in his arm crack and shatter on impact.

Dazed and in agony, Umar lumbered to his feet. Dust and choking gray smoke filled the air. He yanked the collar of his shirt up over his mouth and nose, in hopes of shielding his lungs from the thick smoke.

It won’t matter. It will be over soon.

It seemed as if a lifetime had passed before the third bomb rocked the facility.

If the explosion was successful, it would destroy the plant’s main structure, setting off a massive catastrophic fire and taking out the emergency water feeding system used to cool the reactor’s cores. Then, within minutes, one of the reactors would overheat and explode, sending a plume of radiation into the atmosphere, spreading deadly particles hundreds of miles across the United States, depending on the direction of the wind.

High-pitched emergency sirens wailed, alerting anyone within a ten-mile radius that something horrible had happened at the plant. Within minutes, the San Luis Obispo County warning system that extended from Cayucos in the north to Nipomo in the south would begin to howl.

Intense heat melted patches of skin on his face and bare arms, the pain unbearable. Umar’s throat and lungs burned, and he prayed it would be over soon.

He dropped to his knees and wheezed for a breath, scarcely able to whisper his last dying words. “Allahu Akbar.” Then he slowly raised his head and stared into the eye of the raging fire roaring toward him.

***ADVISORY: CONTAINS CONTENT UNSUITABLE FOR READERS UNDER 18 YEARS OF AGE.***

BLURB
In the year 3127, the human race faces possible extinction when a viral outbreak spreads like wildfire during a never ending cold spell. Former militia member Barrick Hardison has been forced to use his training for survival before, and finds himself doing it again…but this time for a woman he hardly even knows.

Lyza Guerrera has spent her entire life trying to hide in the shadows. It didn’t do her any good. An orphan from the former Puerto Rico region, Lyza’s foreign looks simply attract danger, including Barrick. Fortunately for her, Barrick doesn’t seem to have any interest in her, or anyone else for that matter.

After meeting under extreme circumstances, Barrick begrudgingly allows Lyza to tag along with him. Threatening his former employer and witnessing a near upheaval of his old militia camp has given Barrick the realization that circumstances are not only worse than he thought, but he and Lyza are stuck in the middle of it all.

When it seems like their situation can’t possibly get worse, the strength of the Defects seems to be growing with numbers, and Barrick’s sanity begins to waver amidst it all. Will he get Lyza and her precious cargo to safety or will his uncontrollable feelings and impending psychosis prevent him from reaching their much needed destination?

EXCERPT
Barrick watched Lyza as she sauntered out of the canteen back toward the infirmary. He could tell she was tired by the heaviness in the swing of her hips. She turned briefly, glancing back at him to blow him a kiss. Barrick traced every curve of her body in one swift glance. Her baby bump was noticeably larger than the day he’d met her. It also turned him on a hell of a lot more than it had back then. Barrick smirked crookedly.
“I’m a dirty, dirty man,” he said out loud. He stood statuesque for quite some time, playing with mental images of Lyza’s pregnant, glistening body draped across his own like one of his lopsided fur blankets. He loved the way she wiggled and squirmed in the throes of passion, how she made little rodent sounds when she yearned to feel every inch of him.

AUTHOR BIO

Somewhere amidst her forty-hour job and playtime with her son, Rachel finds time to walk the streets of worlds only existing on manmade paper. She resides in small college town Northwestern Nebraska with her son, just a few blocks away from her parents. She enjoys socializing with adults, sipping sweetened iced tea, and head banging to music that doesn’t carry a beat worth the effort of rock star hair slinging.

Our love affair wasn’t what everyone wanted it to be. It was raw and full of absolute joy and unbelievable pain. My love for her had consumed me for years and now that Kaye was mine, I was never letting her go. I knew the consequences of our affair would be devastating and hated to see the hurt in Claire’s eyes. I thought it would be so easy to just walk away…start a new life. I didn’t expect to feel so conflicted about leaving. I needed her. She was my lifeline and we were determined to get our happily ever after….until one day, one event, one conversation threatened it all. “I had to know what went wrong. My stomach was sick with grief and I didn’t know what to do next or even how to help Kaye. I needed to get to her. It didn’t matter what Rob or Claire thought. No one could stop me from going. I knew she needed me. I could feel it deep in my soul.

Rob was sitting near Jake and Claire and motioned for me to join him on the lounger.
I put my finger up indicating I needed a minute as I still had to see the caterers out. Rob winked at me and smiled, reminding me of Jake’s odd response earlier in the evening. I
smiled back as I tried to ignore my thoughts.

Eventually, I made my way over to my husband and crawled into the chair with him.
Jake’s eyes never left me, but Rob didn’t notice. It should have been unnerving,
but it wasn’t. I snuggled deep beside my man, laid my head on his muscular chest, and wrapped my arms around his waist. He was my home.

I felt Rob stirring and realized I’d fallen asleep in his arms in the lounger. He was still
chatting with Jake about work stuff, and I started to get up, but he pulled me back down and held me in place.

“Don’t leave. We were thinking of going for a night swim.”Rob grinned.
I knew what that meant. He loved to swim naked with me, but I certainly wasn’t going to do that with Jake and Claire here. He chuckled at my raised eyebrows because he knew I was about to protest, so he whispered, “With suits this time.”

I’m a wife, a mom of three, a friend, an aunt, a sister, a daughter and a teacher. Now, I can add writer to my list! I’ve always wanted to write and finally found inspiration and support to do it.

I live near Austin, Texas with my family and love to read and travel. Put me on a beach with a good book and the world just disappears around me.

Paradise Taken was my first novel and is a highly emotional book based on true events. Its sequel (Saving Us) is due out February 2014.

Loving Her was the second book I wrote after needing a little time off from Paradise Tak-en. It is a story close to my heart.

I love that you are willing to take a chance on a new writer and promise to keep striving to put out great books!

If you don’t like my books, that’s okay. Just please be gentle on my fragile ego. 😉

Ted Milo, until recently the Charles Dickens of obit writers, is dislodged from his carefree new life by a bizarre collision of homicides and hemorrhoids in the fancy Los Angeles suburb of Friendly Lake. Actually…not so friendly, Ted and his wife, Liv, soon discover.

Ted has ditched his long newspaper career to embrace the nouveau riche life he’d always ridiculed after inheriting a fortune from a distant relative. He is floating blissfully, contemplating the fruits of wealth, little on his fiftyish mind beyond bladder control, when a visit to a physician turns him into a sleuth with cold-blooded murders to solve.

“You’re doing this why, because the Navy SEALS aren’t hiring?” chides Liv when learning she’s now married to Sam Spade. “And your dream of playing center field for the Dodgers—dashed?”

Every gumshoe requires a “tomato,” though, and Liv is Ted’s when bodies hit the slab in this twisty mystery that exposes the warty underside of seemingly tranquil suburbia.

Howard Rosenberg earned a Pulitzer Prize and numerous other honors during 25 years as TV critic for the Los Angeles Times. He teaches news ethics, critical writing and a TV symposium at the University of Southern California and resides in a far-off Los Angeles suburb with his wife, two cats and a bird, all of whom tend to ignore him.

His favorite pastime is slam dunking and working out with the Los Angeles Lakers.
In his dreams.

This blog is the place where I post reviews of the books I have read. I review audiobooks, regular books and eBooks for authors and publishers as well as any other book or audiobook that catches my eye.